


Ascension

by fileg



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 3rd Age - The Stewards, Canon - Enhances original, Characters - New interpretation, Characters - Well-handled emotions, Plot - Bittersweet, Plot - Disturbing/frightening/unsettling, Plot - I reread often, Poetry, Writing - Every word counts, Writing - Evocative, Writing - Foreshadowing, Writing - Mythic/Poetic, Writing - Well-handled PoV(s), Writing - Well-handled introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 21:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3743387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fileg/pseuds/fileg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the <i>Denethor Poetry Challenge</i>, a terzanelle that questions the futile nature of waiting for redemption.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ascension

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

My father’s passing brought me to this place  
An unthanked servant of an absent king  
ascends the steps with ashes on his face

A thousand years of fruitless withering  
The truth can’t be denied. This is my fate  
an unthanked servant of an absent king

Outside the shadow gathers at the gate  
All that begins in my time is - the end  
The truth can’t be denied. This is my fate

I cannot shed a tear or seem to bend  
lest destiny destroy me like a knife  
All that begins in my time is - the end

It asks for all I am; my sons, my wife  
And I accept the bargain, as a man  
lest destiny destroy me like a knife

My life lies like a bridge across this span  
My father’s passing brought me to this place  
And I accept the bargain, as a man  
ascends the steps with ashes on his face

*******

**Author's notes:**  
I am dreadfully afraid I am coming to understand this man... or at least the part of him that interpreted things to his own world view.

This is a terzanelle, and it deals with Denethor's feelings of the ceremony and obligations of a steward who has had no king to serve for almost a thousand years. I have such a strong symbolic image of the oil / chrism used for such annointings and I wanted to contrast it with his later madness, but oil as an image is changed in our modern mind, and it got too...

If you would like to know more about interlocked and other kinds of poetry, please join us in the members forum [verse and adversity](http://henneth-annun.net/members/forums/threads.cfm?confid=6&forumid=272)  



End file.
